The head of Russian-Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said the inhabitants of the occupied peninsula "morally support" the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Aksyonov stated the Crimea is ready to cooperate with the separatists in the Donbas, Glavnoe reported.

"All of the unrecognized state formations of the former Soviet Union clearly gravitate towards Russia. Holding a referendum, collecting signatures, dreaming of joining the group. Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the Republic of Novy Rossiya, …

The former President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, discussed his recent visit to Moscow where he presented his book of memoirs, This is who I am! Zatlers shared his impressions with journalists from Latvijas Avīze, BaltNews reported.

“The Russian media shows everything bad about Latvia and it ignores questions asked in the Diplomatic Academy concerning the improvement of relations with Latvia,” said the former President, urging the exploration of Russian diplomacy deeper than it is currently …

New U.S. troops stationed in Rukla, Lithuania have begun their work, as reported by delfi.lt.

According to the news portal, the contingent consists of about 260 servicemen. The American troops will continue exercises through the end of June in Lithuania. U.S. ground troops in Lithuania and other Baltic States have been revolving since the spring of 2014.

Other allies have sent troops to Lithuania on an irregular basis; however the decision on whether to deploy a regular battalion consisting …

The Portuguese Police and the EU Police Service, Europol, stated that they have uncovered a cell of influential Russian mafia members which is likely laundering money through European football clubs.

Europol’s statement published on May 4th said that this group, by providing financial support to the clubs, has established control over them, and subsequently could launder money through player transfers.

Searches of several football clubs were conducted in Portugal as part of the investigation …

A Russian court in Tver sentenced mechanical engineer Andrei Bubeev to two years and three months in a penal colony for posting "extremist content" on his social media page, Radio Svoboda reported. 

The content that was deemed to be extremist by the court was a post on Bubeev's VKontakte page which read "Crimea is Ukraine".

Bubeev was charged with public calls to commit extremism and activities aimed at violating the territorial integrity of Russia.

The human rights organization Memorial has  …

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that Russia would consider selling tanks, armored personnel carriers and combat aircraft to Iran.

“Bans against Iran for certain weapons such as tanks, armored personnel carriers and combat aircraft were removed and instead changed to five-year licensing regimes. This means that Iran can now consider buying these types of weapons. We will definitely consider their proposals if they contact us in this regard. I will however repeat that the S-300 …

Russian warplanes regularly violate Estonian airspace. This was reported by the Minister of Defense of Estonia, Hannes Hanso, during a visit to Paris on the 3rd of May. He added that this is “extremely reckless behavior” by Moscow.

“They are violating our airspace fairly regularly. They fly over the Baltic Sea with their transponders switched off,” Hanso reported.

He added that even though military radar can detect a plane which has its transponders turned off, civilian aircraft are unable to …

Nadiya Savchenko has refused to sign the documents for extradition to Ukraine. She explained her decision in a letter posted on her Facebook page.

“I am outraged! The officials brought me a set of documents to complete for my extradition to Ukraine. I laughed wildly after reading them. The first question asked what my purpose was for crossing the Russian border. Can you imagine such a question? I answered that I was kidnapped by the Russian secret service. They immediately changed my answer to …